US Election. - Page 4

You’ve probably come across the ‘third-generation syndrome’. The first slaves and sacrifices to build a profitable enterprise etc; the second, raised in the shadow of the first and appreciative of the struggle, continues to advance the family business; the third, brought up with a silver spoon and the best private schooling money can buy, simply can’t see the worth or point of it, eventually turning to art, boats, exotic cars or some other bone-idle indulgence, if not squandering the family inheritance by the time they’re dead. Speaking from plenty of experience, leaving million-dollar trust accounts for your kids is the worst thing to do!

My dad was a factory worker and I well remember the bad periods when he’d lose his job through no fault of his own because of yet another economic downturn or credit squeeze. Formulating effective compensatory social welfare involves maintaining the right balance. Undue generosity only creates disincentive and general apathy. It’s just that presently the scales are weighted unduly in favor of the haves - 35 % marginal tax rate! And that whilst the elderly without an employer health scheme can’t get proper basic health care!  Besides, given the economic outlook etc, it’s all seems a tad academic.

A bleak picture Preston. Still, judging by latest consumer confidence figures, forward manufacturing orders and worker layoffs, who really knows how this will end! Market had a good day though …
 

GO AWAY SOME WHERE ELSE WITH THAT F****N ELECTION AHHHHHH.................!

i agree with preston all the way

An Open Letter To Barack Hussein Obama

http://www.dittowire.com/beyond_the_headlines/2008/10/to-barack-hussein-obama---the-new-york-times-carried-a-story-on-saturday-october-4-2008-that-proved-you-had-a-significantl.html

 >I understand your objections to death duties, Mickey, but still maintain it’s one of the best taxes for redressing extreme inequalities (for one thing, you can’t take it with you!) <

No, it's not.  The insanely rich (Rockefellers, Kennedy's and the like) will bypass the death tax with loopholes and trusts, and the middle rich (those with only a few million) will have their right to choose where their money goes ripped asunder by this inefficient government.  It's NOT government's, nor your, business what someone else wants to leave to someone other than his spouse!  What if that spouse is a 2nd, or 3rd, and the individual has natural children to whom he wishes to leave his estate?  The way the tax law is now, if he tries, before his death, to give assets to someone other than his current spouse, he's taxed after the first $10,000.00 per person, per annum.  That is hardly enough to point an heir toward a life of Ferraris, Chisum.

This is simply a way to keep all but the uber-rich down in their places, and to keep the working man and the welfare recipient  licking the shoes of the Democrat party.

Fair comment, Mickey - shall try to do it justice later.

Only one more week, badgsd!

A litany of sins, RatPack! Should hang his head in shame, Obama should.
Yet only a politician and human after all; and Michael would never stretch a point or two …

Fully concur that people mostly end up with the sort of government they deserve. All things being equal, it moots a McCain/Palin win, particularly when judged by quality of debate.

But it’s not going to happen. The economy shrunk in the last quarter and consumer spending slumped 3%. (Food and cloth purchases down to a fifty-year low!) A seventeen-year shopping spree just bit the dust! Faced with a recession, a McCain win would represent, statistically, a once in a century event – don’t like the odds!

Only one more week, badgsd!

A litany of sins, RatPack! Should hang his head in shame, Obama should.
Yet only a politician and human after all; and Michael would never stretch a point or two …

Fully concur that people mostly end up with the sort of government they deserve. All things being equal, it moots a McCain/Palin win, particularly when judged by quality of debate.

But it’s not going to happen. The economy shrunk in the last quarter and consumer spending slumped 3%. (Food and cloth purchases down to a fifty-year low!) A seventeen-year shopping spree just bit the dust! Faced with a recession, a McCain win would represent, statistically, a once in a century event – don’t like the odds!

I’ll come clean in a small way, Mickey. I’ve cut my working hours way back, but make my living from giving financial and other management advice to business people, corporations and well-off individuals, and always have. If you were a client I’d probably be telling you the opposite to what I’ve extolled in this forum in a private capacity, particularly since tax collectors are one of my prime opponents! The marginal rates applicable to the better-informed non-employee high earners are in reality largely academic. They use beggars like me to restructure their affairs by any one of myriad legal means and schemes, often enough converting high taxable incomes into useful carry-forward losses. They normally also enjoy higher standard deductions - employees with decent spare funds aren’t of course without options either. Much the same with estate planning: the clued-up well-to-do tend to restructure their affairs through family trusts and company structures and other ways well before they depart the mortal coil (certainly not up to me to set the tax policy but functionally very much part of my business?)

So you’re quite right when you say that many of the rich bypass their ‘death tax’. When I say that death duties are one of the better taxes it’s only against the backdrop, or relative to the pros and cons of all the other possible taxes – and given that someone has got to pay the damned stuff! The same way that we judge progressive imposts versus regressive ones. Imposing gift duty on disposals within a certain period prior to death is pretty common in all Western countries, regardless of what political party rules the roost – I don’t make the law, Mickey!

Anyhow, if you can find a practising or academic tax expert who doesn’t believe that point of death is one of the better or opportune times to collect tax let me know. (Of course, were you to engage my services, you’d find me wholeheartedly agreeing with your views – “absolutely diabolical those death duties”!) As said, most thinking people realized many centuries ago that allowing wealth to narrowly accumulate without end was generally bad news all round, if not mostly unproductive. An effective exemption of 2.5 or 3.5 million is exceptionally generous compared to most other countries. And I’m sure no good Republican would wish to deprive their offspring of the incentive to stand on their own two feet and make their own way in the world.

"I’m sure no good Republican would wish to deprive their offspring of the incentive to stand on their own two feet and make their own way in the world."

If a good republican feels this way, he will CHOOSE to leave a sizable portion to charity, or to his alma mater, will he not?  The issue is freedom of choice for someone who has been frugal throughout his life in order to be able to leave something to his heirs (and to choose, if remarried, to leave the bulk of his estate to his natural children, not to his Anna Nicole old age trophy).

I believe on this subject we will have to agree to disagree.

BTW, I hope you don't feel too hypocritical when counseling those who pay you for your services.

............this election is so important it is unbelievable...almost....................................8yrs. of little bush..we have lost so many of our rights....we have what close to 5000 of our sons ..daughters..etc..killed...tens of thousands maimed..seeking proper care....some .fighting without proper equipment....a war initiated on a lie..by a vicepres..and pres.who stoled an election...then the gullible american people re-elected them...wtf...tens of thousands of innocent iraqis killed...millions have had to flee their homeland..i say innocent iraqis...f... the terriosts they should be eliminated..it should have happened in afghanistan....alqaida[spelling] is more powerful now than prior to the war......the torturing.of so many people...the manner in which the troops are drilled to be so vicious...rewarded for kills.;.etc.........listen to the soldiers against the war speak...the cost of oil ..what ..quadrupled...gas tripled...what do you expect when you put an oilman in the office.....so if you like all that then vote republican...if you want change democrat...so simple..but if you really like all that.......????????????????????

That sums it up quite nicely, Jade.